Could mankind hope to survive a galactic
war that left boys aged cripples in a few short
years? Who would replace them when there were—
NO SONS LEFT TO DIE!
By Hal Annas
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
September 1953
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Susan Wildress knew that what she was about to do might mean death.
She stopped eating and stared at the ration of ground cedar bark,rabbit, and a hydroponic which tasted like eggplant. She pushed backher plate and glanced around at the tense girl faces in the huge dininghall. She lifted a small strong hand and ran it inside her sweater. Shebrought out a locket, snapped it open.
The flesh grew tight around her dark brown eyes and in her olivecheeks. The memory was still as clear as the day it happened. Threeyears. She was just fourteen, sitting in the groundcar and watching thepreparations which were always dramatic.
Darth Brady had lied about his age. He was supposed to be nineteen butwas just past seventeen. She had known and so had everyone else, butthe Centers needed boys, needed them desperately.
She remembered how her face got wet as she watched him go out to theship. He looked very tall and broad and strong, a man. His jaw wasfirm and his features grim. He looked toward her but didn't wave, for,since she could first remember, there had been a stringent rule againstmaking close ties with boys at the Centers.
Replacing the locket, she rose and walked casually to the exit. Sheglanced right and left, hurried to the entrance to the factory, reacheddown her time card and punched in. Then she hurried back across thespace to the dining hall, around behind it and on out to the rows ofcedar trees.
The penalty, she knew, might be endless restriction, even death, butshe didn't hesitate. With trees concealing her movements, she hurriedalong to the dormitory groundcar ramps. She went more cautiously now.
A moment later she heard masculine voices and a shiver ran down herspine. It was not the voices themselves, but the words they used.Zeehites. She had heard the term many times, never without a shudder.Men could be put to death for discussing the Zeehites around women orchildren.
Moving quickly, she slipped between two cars, slid into the controlseat of one. With infinite care she backed it out, rolled it as quietlyas possible a hundred yards before setting in motion the vanes thatwould lift it. She brought it down again in a clearing in the wood atthe edge of the heat-blackened plain.
For a time she remained undecided. A score of ships were out on theplain. She had seen from the air scores of others on other plains.Nowhere had she seen one bristling with full armament and scars ofbattle to indicate it to be the Ida Bella, Nucleus, Trilogy orFirelance.
She thought of binding her dark wavy hair tight against her head. Thethought, she knew, was idle. Nowhere on the planet could she pass as aman, dressed as she was in denims and sweater. Young men wore purpleuniforms; those in logistics wore brown.
Dismissing caution, she walked rapidly toward the buildings of theCenter. And now she became very careful of her thoughts. She knew thatyouths developed remarkably at the Centers. They had to if they wereto survive out among the stars in that long chain of ships stretchedacross the course of the Zeehites